Happiness

Lately, I’ve been trying to figure out my life.  You know, things like what college I should go to, what career I want to get into, and where I want to plant myself to live, marry, and raise a family to finish off the rest of my life.  I think a lot of adults kind of pressure us as we grow up to figure out a lot of that throughout the first twenty to thirty years of our lives.  That’s all fine and dandy, I get why.  It’s very good to have some sense of direction (which I totally lack).

But as I stood outside on my front porch watching my dog take a dump, I felt that, despite what many of you may think, I’m on the right track.  I guess I don’t know what I want to do for the rest of my life.  I honestly don’t know what I want to do to make a living.  This might sound bad, and you probably disagree with me, but I’m focusing on simply making a life for myself, not so much just making a living.

What I mean by this is that I want to make decisions now that will ensure a good shot of happiness in the future.  That definitely includes getting an education, a solid job, and having some sort of game plan, but more.

I don’t need a good job to be happy.  I don’t need a nice house.  I don’t need a Master’s degree.  But it will all help.

The point of this post is going to also include my third pro tip in finding happiness.  Don’t allow yourself to fall into the deception that you have to do all of that in order to be happy.  Those are just pieces to the bigger picture.

I think that when I’m fifty, I want to be happy.  When I “grow up” I want to just be at peace with how things in my life are.  They’ll tell us that we need to focus on school and working right now in order to be happy in forty years.  But there’s more to it than that.  You won’t automatically encounter happiness because you went to school and got a job, and then you worked every day till you’re 65.

I don’t necessarily believe that happiness, or success for that matter, is something that can be chased.  It's just a by-product.  I think rather than like in pursuing something, happiness simply ensues.  It’s the result of giving yourself completely to someone or something greater than oneself, other than oneself.

Every day, I simply want to wake up and be able to do that.  I want to embrace what I am, and then dive into what I am most passionate about.  That might be in politics, in worship, or in my relationships with others.  I want to find a job that I enjoy going to, to the point that it’s not really a “job,” but a large factor and positive aspect of my life.

Carl Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist who founded analytical psychiatry.  He also believed there were five factors that all led to happiness.  Unfortunately, most of these were left out in most of our education and while we were raised, I think.

Firstly, he said happiness is ensured by good physical and mental health.  Your relationships, and good ones, were next.  He also felt that you should be able to perceive beauty in art and nature.  Never lose that awe of the world, and solid marvel at things.  He said that reasonable standards of living and satisfactory work were needed.   Lastly, he felt that having a philosophic or religious perspective when it came to coping successfully with life is a must-have.

Read more.  Go for a run or something.   Exercise both your body and mind on a regular basis, and you’ll more than likely find happiness .  I can agree with that, and this is something I’m going to begin to focus on each day.  When I grow up, I want to be in good health, fit, and smarter than I am now.

I want to get married, and fix the broken connections with my family.  I want to grow closer to my friends and meet new people.  I think it’s absolutely imperative for me to have close people in my life, because I don’t want to walk this world alone.  I also think that most of my happiness draws on my relationships with people.

I want to never lose my awe and wonder of this world and the universe.  I want to continue to play music, and express myself through that and my writing.  When the world becomes mundane and  boring, I think it’s significantly harder to be happy.

And the one everyone else always focuses on; getting a job and having a good, solid life.  I want to be happy with my occupation.  That’s simply it.  I don’t need a mansion, but I want a house that will be clean, warm, and safe.  So, yes, people, I do think it's necessary to go to school and do all that, and it is indeed a priority.  But I don't think it works this way:

EDUCATION + A JOB = HAPPINESS.  It all helps and can add to it, but it's not the only ingredient in everything.

I interpret that last one not as believing in God, but simply believing in something beyond us.  That probably is God to most people, or a cause or belief.  Sometimes simply having some sort of philosophy about this world and your life is enough.  If you read my blog, you'll see that I obviously have a philosophy and certain beliefs.

I feel like happiness is a result of doing all these things.  If I focus on these things, I believe I’ll encounter happiness and, like I said, it will simply ensue.  I’ll let you know how it goes :p

Thoughts?

Also, I got a compliment on the last joke I posted on here, so here is another.  What did zero say to eight?  "LOL.  Nice belt."